Saturday, March 22, 2014

Easy-going, or just defeated?

(First published in The Dominion Post, March 21.)

WE’RE generally an easy-going
lot, we New Zealanders. Problem is, I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad.

I recently attempted to catch
a Saturday morning train from Masterton to Wellington. It didn’t turn up. The
word among the 30 or so people waiting at the station was that the train driver
had called in sick.

Eventually a bus came, more
than an hour after the train had been scheduled to leave.

There was a cricket test and a
music festival on in Wellington that day, so a lot of people were heading into
the city. By the time the bus had stopped at all three Masterton stations, passengers
were standing in the aisle.

What struck me was the
good-natured resignation of my fellow travellers. Doubtless arrangements had
been mucked up and inconvenience caused, but it was accepted in good humour.

I didn’t know whether to be
proud or exasperated. On the one hand some might think it charming that we’re
so laidback. On the other, I couldn’t help thinking there were parallels with godforsaken
Third World countries like Haiti or Tanzania, where citizens are so inured to
institutional incompetence – for instance, failing to ensure backup for a sick
train driver – that they consider it futile to protest.

I experience similar feelings
when Air New Zealand flights are delayed, which seems to be most of the time. I
often seem to be the only passenger seething with frustration, not just at the
inconvenience but the apparent indifference of the airline’s ground staff (who,
incidentally, could learn a thing or two about customer relations from the
Tranz Metro employee who accompanied our bus to Wellington).

On a much graver level, I marvel
at our complacent reaction when politicians and unaccountable bureaucrats
launch outrageous assaults on our rights.

In Auckland right now, Len
Brown’s council is considering a draft plan that would force thousands of
property owners to seek something called a “cultural impact assessment” from
local iwi before they can undertake work such as earthworks or vegetation
removal.

Private property rights have
long been a cornerstone of our legal and economic system, yet here they are
being usurped by newly discovered pseudo-rights arising from ill-defined (but
politically voguish) notions of cultural sanctity.

It’s easy to see where things
might lead if, as proposed, 19 iwi are given power to determine whether
property owners can proceed with even modest development proposals. I can
imagine koha being paid to clear away obstacles.

But are the people of
Auckland marching in their thousands on the Town Hall? No. Probably too busy
polishing their BMWs.

* * *

I WONDER whether Judith
Collins ever learned the biblical adage that pride comes before a fall.

You can get away with being
supremely cocky as long as events are running in your favour, but when you
eventually get your comeuppance you’re likely to fall further and land harder.

Ms Collins needlessly made
things more painful for herself by trying to brazen her way out of the Oravida controversy,
thinking her customary imperiousness would get her through. After all, it’s
worked for her in the past.

But that only made it all the
more humiliating when she finally had to acknowledge she was wrong. Her fall
from grace was all the more pronounced because it was from such a lofty height.

There are some lessons here.
The first is that no politician is bulletproof – not even one who revels in the
sobriquet of “Crusher”.

The second is that the media
will take even more exquisite pleasure than usual in bringing down a politician
who is perceived as arrogant and haughty.

It’s not too late for Ms
Collins to catch up on her bible studies. She’ll find the relevant verse at
Proverbs 16:18.

* * *

SO MORTGAGE holders face a
slight upward adjustment in their interest rates. Pass the tissues while I sob
in sympathy.

You’d never guess, from all the
fuss over the Reserve Bank’s raising of the official cash rate, that mortgage
rates will still be low by historical standards. In the 1980s they were running
at more than 20 per cent.

And what’s overlooked is that far
more people will benefit than will be penalised. That’s because far more New
Zealanders are savers than borrowers – by a ratio of five to one, according to
the ANZ bank.

These borrowers have suffered
in silence since interest rates crashed when the global economy tanked in 2008.
In contrast, people with mortgages have never had it so good.

All that’s happening now is a
very modest and long overdue levelling of the playing field in favour of savers
and investors.

Why is this positive news so
conspicuously ignored? It can only be because most of the journalists reporting
on interest rates have mortgages.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.